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Welcome to all the pleasures, Z339

Introduction

Welcome to all the pleasures is the earliest of the three Odes on disc 1, and the smallest in scale. An organization called ‘The Musical Society’ commissioned Purcell to set Christopher Fishburn’s libretto for their first celebration of St Cecilia’s Day in 1683. The event proved popular, for Purcell’s setting of the Ode was published the next year, and the Musical Society had to move to larger premises for its next celebration, although they did not call on Purcell again until 1692 when he produced Hail! bright Cecilia. For the 1683 occasion the youthful Purcell, only twenty-four, produced a work of great freshness, notable amongst many features for its wonderfully original string ritornelli with which he concludes many of the vocal sections. The work also produced one particularly successful alto solo over a ground bass, ‘Here the Deities approve’ (which moves into a most elegant string ritornello) published separately in 1689 under the title ‘A new Ground’ in the second part of Musick’s Hand-Maid. Fishburn’s text gave the composer an opportunity for gentle word-setting at ‘Beauty, thou scene of love’, and Purcell obliged with a movement given first to a solo tenor (with a delicious, and maybe slightly malicious, discord at the mention of the lute), and then taken up by the string ensemble. Unusually, Purcell employs a quiet ending to the work, with the texture of the last line of music ‘Iô Cecilia’ fading away to leave just the bass instruments and singers to conclude the Ode.

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Welcome to all the pleasures that delight
Of ev’ry sense the grateful appetite,
Hail, great assembly of Apollo’s race.
Hail to this happy place, this musical assembly
That seems to be the arc of universal harmony.

Here the Deities approve
The God of Music and of Love;
All the talents they have lent you,
All the blessings they have sent you,
Pleas’d to see what they bestow,
Live and thrive so well below.

Christopher Fishburn (fl1683-1683)

Purcell’s Ode Welcome to all the pleasures was commissioned by a body called The Musical Society for their first celebration of St Cecilia’s day in 1683. A work of great freshness and vitality, it contained one movement Here the Deities approve which found such success that it was later printed on its own in a keyboard transcription of 1689 entitled ‘A new Ground’. Purcell follows the same form as in With him he brings, with a ground bass and a delightful alto solo, taken over at the half-way point by string writing of great elegance and beauty.

Then lift up your voices, those organs of nature,
Those charms to the troubled and amorous creature.
The power shall divert us a pleasanter way,
For sorrow and grief find from music relief,
And love its soft charms must obey.
Then lift up your voices, those organs of nature,
Those charms to the troubled and amorous creature.

Beauty, thou scene of love,
And virtue thou innocent fire,
Made by the powers above
To temper the heat of desire,
Music that fancy employs
In rapture of innocent flame,
We offer with lute and with voice
To Cecilia, Cecilia’s bright name.